Little things in the multiplayer of H5

Games Halo 5: Guardians
#1

Hi! I’m not here to talk about big gamechanging things like is the sprint in the game or not and is there descope etc. I just want to point out little things that have an effect on Halo’s multiplayer in previous titles.

1. Indicator that shows where weapons (for example sniper) respawn (against)

I think this feature shouldn’t be in the game. Everyone learns eventually where weapons will spawn. That’s the fact. The indicator gives up your position because other players notice when specific weapon is taken from the ground. You have an advantage when you know where rocket or sniper will spawn. You also have an advantage because only those players who physically saw you pick up that weapon know you have it. With indicator everyone knows you have it and they might change their approach to you. No indicator increases skillgap and favors talented/smart players.

2. Weapon ammo disappearing really fast (against)

In H4 weapons disappeared from the map really fast. For example if I died with sniper in “CTF-gamemode” and I wanted to get that sniper back when I spawned it wasn’t possible because the sniper was gone. And in “Rumble Pit” it is hard to get ammo because guns disappear so fast from corpses in H4 and people use so many different guns.

3. Specific weapon spawns for ALL weapons (support)

I’m gonna start this with an example. In H3’s Pit if you run out of the BR ammo, there are exactly 6 places where BR respawns. After tens of games everyone has some kind of image of how to get BR/BR ammo in the H3 Pit. So in this case these BR-spawns really favor knowledge of the game because you can get ammo without having to rush anyone with possibility to die. Powerweapon spawns also benefit the better and the smarter player because if you know for example where the sniper spawns and when it spawns you have advantage on other players because you’re more likely to get this weapon. So this little thing increases the skillgap and changes game’s flow. In H4 there weren’t too much specific weapon spawns for standard weapons and early in H4 there were random weapons spawning in random places. It really made the game more random and decreased skillgap and consistency.

4.Ability to be able to check scoreboard midgame and move at the same time (support)

This is just a very tiny thing but I think it would still have an effect on the multiplayer. In H4 when I checked my scoreboard by pressing back-button mid game I wasn’t able to move. This is a detail that affects mostly competitive players. When you’re about to make a push you need to check out are there any teammates alive to support you and how many enemies are alive. So in H3 for example you were able to check scoreboard and notice that “oh they are 3 down” and push at the same time. In H4 you can’t move your character or aim while checking scoreboard. In competitive Halo everything is fastpaced and coming down to milliseconds so this slows you down and might put you to bad situation. Although it doesn’t affect gameplay very much, in my POV it is annoying and shouldn’t be too hard to fix.

5. In-game music (against)

This was only in H4 and I don’t really know why it was in the game. It couldn’t be turned off and to my mind it was really annoying. It wasn’t a big deal but it blocks the other voices (footsteps, gunshots and your friends’ voices and callouts).

6. Grenade indicator (against)

This is also tiny thing. In H4 there was an indicator showing you if somebody threw grenade near you in multiplayer. I think this wasn’t good addition to MP. It makes it easier to dodge the nade and it gives up your position (whether you are the guy hit buy grenade or the guy who threw it). This also prevents longrange nades and so called GOAT nades from happening. In my personal opinion this feature shouldn’t be in the game.

So this was about it this time. Of course I have my opinion on sprint, new spartan abilites, ordinances and other gamechanging things but there is already so much discussion here on forums about these things so I just leave it here.

Thanks for reading! See you on November 11th :slight_smile:

-Antti

#2

> 2. Weapon ammo disappearing really fast (against)
>
> In H4 weapons disappeared from the map really fast. For example if I died with sniper in “CTF-gamemode” and I wanted to get that sniper back when I spawned it wasn’t possible because the sniper was gone. And in “Rumble Pit” it is hard to get ammo because guns disappear so fast from corpses in H4 and people use so many different guns.

I just cannot follow that complaint in regards to power weapons.

I actually like that power weapons despawn that fast (regular weapons not so much because of the ammo reason you mentioned though the issue could be solved differently, i.e just increasing the max amount of spare ammo at spawn).

Afterall power weapons are team advantages, as long as you are playing team based gametypes.
I think when you die and hence lose the power weapon you had, there should be enough time for a close team mate to pick it up to keep it in the team’s possession but not enough for yourself to walk back and pick it up as if nothing happened.
You messed up. Either your team manages it to iron out your death and loss or you pay for it with the loss of the power weapon.

#3

Very good points, OP. I like this.

#4

Agree with all but #6

> 6. Grenade indicator (against)
>
> This is also tiny thing. In H4 there was an indicator showing you if somebody threw grenade near you in multiplayer. I think this wasn’t good addition to MP. It makes it easier to dodge the nade and it gives up your position (whether you are the guy hit buy grenade or the guy who threw it). This also prevents longrange nades and so called GOAT nades from happening. In my personal opinion this feature shouldn’t be in the game.

If grenades explode in Halo 5 as quickly as they do in Halo 4, lack of a grenade indicator would only add to the problem.

#5

> If grenades explode in Halo 5 as quickly as they do in Halo 4, lack of a grenade indicator would only add to the problem.

Can we just make grenades glow so they are highly visible? Why should you know a grenade is next to you if you didn’t see or hear it?

#6

> I just cannot follow that complaint in regards to power weapons.
>
> I actually like that power weapons despawn that fast (regular weapons not so much because of the ammo reason you mentioned though the issue could be solved differently, i.e just increasing the max amount of spare ammo at spawn).
>
> Afterall power weapons are team advantages, as long as you are playing team based gametypes.
> I think when you die and hence lose the power weapon you had, there should be enough time for a close team mate to pick it up to keep it in the team’s possession but not enough for yourself to walk back and pick it up as if nothing happened.
> You messed up. Either your team manages it to iron out your death and loss or you pay for it with the loss of the power weapon.

As long as the power weapon has ammo it should not despawn. It’s not just about losing a power weapon, it’s the possibility that the enemy team will get it. Now, if you lose a power weapon and it’s still there on the ground after 20 seconds (no one has picked it up) it should be yours. That would be a huge mistake on the enemy teams behalf. Controlling power weapons is essential, from the spawn until they are out of ammo. You will have to keep track on them, not rely on despawning.

#7

> Controlling power weapons is essential, from the spawn until they are out of ammo. You will have to keep track on them, not rely on despawning.

This.

You shouldn’t be able to just kill the enemy player and walk away from a risky situation and depend on the weapon to despawn. The goal should be to kill and prevent the enemy team from reacquiring it, rather than having the game do that for you.

Without POD, despawn times can be increased to add that element back into the game.

#8

> > Controlling power weapons is essential, from the spawn until they are out of ammo. You will have to keep track on them, not rely on despawning.
>
> This.
>
> You shouldn’t be able to just kill the enemy player and walk away from a risky situation and depend on the weapon to despawn. The goal should be to kill and prevent the enemy team from reacquiring it, rather than having the game do that for you.

Where did I say something else?

I aimed for that the game should encourage more effort to keep them in the game or in your possession.

In the OP it basically said “there should be enough time so I can pick up the power weapon I just lost when I died”.
I said or at least tried to say “there should not be enough time for yourself but for a team mate (since PW are team advantages) to reach it and pick it up otherwise it will be out of the game or in worst case the enemy could of course pick it up as well during that time”.

Additionally, it would add the aspect that when your team cannot reach it and bring it back in its possession in time it could at least try to prevent the enemy from reaching it. So in the end neither would have it before it despawns.

#9

> > > Controlling power weapons is essential, from the spawn until they are out of ammo. You will have to keep track on them, not rely on despawning.
> >
> > This.
> >
> > You shouldn’t be able to just kill the enemy player and walk away from a risky situation and depend on the weapon to despawn. The goal should be to kill and prevent the enemy team from reacquiring it, rather than having the game do that for you.
>
> Where did I say something else?
>
> I aimed for that the game should encourage more effort to keep them in the game or in your possession.
>
> In the OP it basically said “there should be enough time so I can pick up the power weapon I just lost when I died”.
> I said or at least tried to say “there should not be enough time for yourself but for a team mate (since PW are team advantages) to reach it and pick it up otherwise it will be out of the game or in worst case the enemy could of course pick it up as well during that time”.
>
> Additionally, it would add the aspect that when your team cannot reach it and bring it back in its possession in time it could at least try to prevent the enemy from reaching it. So in the end neither would have it before it despawns.

I see where you going with this. I agree it would be punishment if powerweapon would despawn because of your stupid play. However in my opinion it would be even bigger punishment if it didn’t despawn. Here’s couple examples why despawning is bad thing in my opinion. In H4’s Pit you have rockets in sword but you trade with your enemy. Usually yours and your enemy’s team is in Longhall/Greenbox so they couldn’t possibly get there in time. So the rockets despawn: The enemy doesn’t get rewarded for “clutch kill” and you don’t get punished for bad play. If there wasn’t despawning you and your team are still able to try to save the situation and the enemy team have still possibility to punish your team with those rockets. And if you just die with rockets in Longhall in the Pit with rockets the other team has an option to bait those rockets because you and your teammates are possibly trying to go for them. With fast despawn time the baiting isn’t even possible, or it is possible but it could last for 10 second tops. So I have to agree with Systematic XII and I IZ CABOOSE here.

Now I’m thinking about this whole despawning situation. So in H3 there was a despawning time but it was much longer than in H4 (All critique I said was about H4’s fast despawning time). In H2 I’m not sure what was despawning time or was there one but I know one thing for sure about it. In some MLG event back in 2007 TSquared made huge tactiacal play in Sanctuary TS. He took red-side’s sniper at the beginning and then his team rotated to blue. In H2 new red-side sniper could spawn when T2 died with it with zero bullets. So what he did was staying alive and sniping the other team till he had no ammo. Enemy team’s sniper guy did died so the blue sniper respawned. T2’s team was on blue side so T2 went for that sniper and by picking up more ammo he prevented the red-side sniper from spawning. To make it clear he never dropped the red-side sniper from his back even though it was empty meaning that new red-side sniper wouldn’t spawn before he had wasted all the bullets from it and died/dropped the empty sniper. So he took that refill from blue-side sniper so the red-time sniper wouldn’t spawn until he had wasted all that “extra” ammo. Hope you understand this cause my grammar is quite bad and this is hard thing to explain. But for comparison I tell you that in H3 sniper would still spawn despite the fact that someone is still carrying empty sniper in his back. I think that both systems are good but personally I would go for the H3’s long despawning time because I’m more familiar with that one and IMO it worked well. Especially power weapons should have long despawning time since they spawn so rarely and they are kind a big factors for the flow of the game. About casual weapons despawn I don’t know. In H3 Br spawned like after 30 seconds of it’s pickup despite the fact that the guy who took the previous BR from the same spawn was still alive. I believe that H3’s system for all this weapon respawn/despawn stuff was pretty functional.

#10

Grenades in 4 were garbage. Did barely any damage and mixed with that stupid grenade indicater grenade kills were annoyingly hard to pull off